IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sbe/breart/v27y2007i2a1525.html

The Dynamics of Firm Size Distribution

Author

Listed:
  • Ribeiro, Eduardo Pontual

Abstract

The shape and evolution of firm size distribution has been studied in industrial organization and labor economics. The standard hypothesis of Gibrat’s law of proportionate effect posits that the rate of firm growth is size-independent. We test Gibrat’s law using a new empirical methodology and considering the underinvestigated Brazilian case. Quantile regression is used to estimate the evolution of firm size distribution and to investigate the validity of Gibrat’s law in some parts of the conditional distribution, unlike previous studies, which considered the conditional mean dynamics only. An interesting empirical issue is that usual IV/GMM methods are inappropriate under the null but consistent under the alternative hypothesis, while non-IV methods that impose exogeneity are consistent only under the null hypothesis. Results suggest that Gibrat’s law is rejected; that smaller firms grow faster; and that there seems to be a strong negative asymmetry in conditional distribution as firm size increases.

Suggested Citation

  • Ribeiro, Eduardo Pontual, 2007. "The Dynamics of Firm Size Distribution," Brazilian Review of Econometrics, Sociedade Brasileira de Econometria - SBE, vol. 27(2), November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sbe:breart:v:27:y:2007:i:2:a:1525
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://periodicos.fgv.br/bre/article/view/1525
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. de Wit, Gerrit, 2005. "Firm size distributions: An overview of steady-state distributions resulting from firm dynamics models," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 23(5-6), pages 423-450, June.
    2. Pesaran, M Hashem & Smith, Richard J, 1994. "A Generalized R[superscript]2 Criterion for Regression Models Estimated by the Instrumental Variables Method," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(3), pages 705-710, May.
    3. Koenker, Roger W & Bassett, Gilbert, Jr, 1978. "Regression Quantiles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 33-50, January.
    4. Quah, Danny T, 1996. "Twin Peaks: Growth and Convergence in Models of Distribution Dynamics," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(437), pages 1045-1055, July.
    5. John Sutton, 1997. "Gibrat's Legacy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(1), pages 40-59, March.
    6. Angrist, Joshua D. & Krueger, Alan B., 1999. "Empirical strategies in labor economics," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 23, pages 1277-1366, Elsevier.
    7. Jose A. F. Machado & Jose Mata, 2000. "Box-Cox quantile regression and the distribution of firm sizes," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(3), pages 253-274.
    8. Quah, Danny, 1996. "Twin peaks : growth and convergence in models of distribution dynamics," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 2278, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Marcelo Resende, 2004. "Gibrat's Law and the Growth of Cities in Brazil: A Panel Data Investigation," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 41(8), pages 1537-1549, July.
    10. Evans, David S, 1987. "Tests of Alternative Theories of Firm Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(4), pages 657-674, August.
    11. Andrews,Donald W. K. & Stock,James H. (ed.), 2005. "Identification and Inference for Econometric Models," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521844413, November.
    12. Moshe Buchinsky, 1998. "Recent Advances in Quantile Regression Models: A Practical Guideline for Empirical Research," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 33(1), pages 88-126.
    13. Hall, Bronwyn H, 1987. "The Relationship between Firm Size and Firm Growth in the U.S. Manufacturing Sector," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 583-606, June.
    14. Ewald Walterskirchen & et al., 1998. "Exportgetragenes Wirtschaftswachstum. Österreichs Wirtschaft im Jahr 1997," WIFO Monatsberichte (monthly reports), WIFO, vol. 71(4), pages 239-280, April.
    15. Mello, Marcelo & Perrelli, Roberto, 2003. "Growth equations: a quantile regression exploration," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 643-667.
    16. Robert E. Lucas Jr., 1978. "On the Size Distribution of Business Firms," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 9(2), pages 508-523, Autumn.
    17. Koenker,Roger, 2005. "Quantile Regression," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521845731, January.
    18. Friedman, Milton, 1992. "Do Old Fallacies Ever Die?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(4), pages 2129-2132, December.
    19. Marcelo Resende, 2004. "Lei de Gibrat na Indústria Brasileira: Evidência Empírica," Economia, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics], vol. 5(2), pages 221-268.
    20. Stephen Bond & Céline Nauges & Frank Windmeijer, 2002. "Unit Roots and Identification in Autoregressive Panel Data Models: A Comparison of Alternative Tests," 10th International Conference on Panel Data, Berlin, July 5-6, 2002 C5-4, International Conferences on Panel Data.
    21. Danny Quah, 1996. "Twin Peaks: Growth and Convergence in Models of Distribution Dynamics," CEP Discussion Papers dp0280, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    22. Koenker, Roger, 1981. "A note on studentizing a test for heteroscedasticity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 107-112, September.
    23. Kiviet, Jan F., 1995. "On bias, inconsistency, and efficiency of various estimators in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 53-78, July.
    24. Eduardo Pontual Ribeiro, 2001. "Asymmetric labor supply," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 183-197.
    25. Kwasnicki, Witold, 1998. "Skewed distributions of firm sizes--an evolutionary perspective," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 135-158, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sven-Olov Daunfeldt & Niklas Elert, 2013. "When is Gibrat’s law a law?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 133-147, June.
    2. de Carvalho, Antonio Gledson, 2008. "The Effect of Size and Institutional Development on the Growth of Brazilian Firms," Revista Brasileira de Economia - RBE, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil), vol. 62(4), December.
    3. Christos Axioglou & Nicos Christodoulakis, 2019. "Which firms survive in a crisis? Corporate dynamics in Greece 2001-2014," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 133, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    4. A. A. Blokhin & A. A. Likhachev, 2021. "Institutional Barriers for Fast Growing Companies," Studies on Russian Economic Development, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 364-373, July.
    5. Christos Axioglou & Nicos Christodoulakis, 2021. "Which firms survive in a crisis? Investigating Gibrat’s Law in Greece 2001–2014," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 48(2), pages 159-217, June.
    6. Elsa de Morais Sarmento & Alcina Nunes, 2012. "The Dynamics of Employer Entreprise Creation in Portugal Over the Last Two Decades: A Firm Size, Regional and Sectoral Perspective," Notas Económicas, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra, issue 36, pages 6-22, December.
    7. Elert, Niklas & Halvardsson, Daniel, 2012. "Economic Freedom and Institutional Convergence," Ratio Working Papers 200, The Ratio Institute.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Matthias Duschl & Thomas Brenner, 2011. "Characteristics of Regional Industry-specific Employment Growth – Empirical Evidence for Germany," Working Papers on Innovation and Space 2011-07, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    2. Louri-Dendrinou, Eleni & Fotopoulos, Georgios, 2002. "Corporate Growth and FDI: Are Multinationals Stimulating Local Industrial Development?," CEPR Discussion Papers 3128, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Matthias Duschl & Thomas Brenner, 2013. "Characteristics of regional industry-specific employment growth rates' distributions," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 92(2), pages 249-270, June.
    4. G. Urga & P. A. Geroski & S. Lazarova & C. F. Walters, 2003. "Are differences in firm size transitory or permanent?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(1), pages 47-59.
    5. Luisa Alamá & Emili Tortosa-Ausina, 2012. "Bank Branch Geographic Location Patterns in S pain: Some Implications for Financial Exclusion," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(3), pages 505-543, September.
    6. Marco Capasso & Elena Cefis & Alessandro Sapio, 2013. "Reconciling quantile autoregressions of firm size and variance–size scaling," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 609-632, October.
    7. Daria Ciriaci & Pietro Moncada-Paternò-Castello & Peter Voigt, 2016. "Innovation and job creation: a sustainable relation?," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 6(2), pages 189-213, August.
    8. Carolina Castaldi & Giovanni Dosi, 2007. "The patterns of output growth of firms and countries: new evidence on scale invariances and scale specificities," LEM Papers Series 2007/14, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    9. Marrero, Ángel S. & Marrero, Gustavo A. & González, Rosa Marina & Rodríguez-López, Jesús, 2021. "Convergence in road transport CO2 emissions in Europe," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    10. Charolina CASTALDI & Giovanni Dosi, 2004. "Income Levels and Income Growth: Some New Cross-Country Evidence and some Interpretative Puzzles," DEGIT Conference Papers c009_038, DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade.
    11. Distante, Roberta & Petrella, Ivan & Santoro, Emiliano, 2018. "Gibrat’s law and quantile regressions: An application to firm growth," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 5-9.
    12. Cefis, Elena & Ciccarelli, Matteo & Orsenigo, Luigi, 2007. "Testing Gibrat's legacy: A Bayesian approach to study the growth of firms," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 348-369, September.
    13. Ragdad Cani Miranti, 2021. "Is regional poverty converging across Indonesian districts? A distribution dynamics and spatial econometric approach," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 851-883, October.
    14. Iancu, Aurel, 2009. "Real Economic Convergence," Working Papers of National Institute for Economic Research 090104, Institutul National de Cercetari Economice (INCE).
    15. Michael Lee & Ritchard Longmire & Laszlo Matyas & Mark Harris, 1998. "Growth convergence: some panel data evidence," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(7), pages 907-912.
    16. Marcio Laurini, 2007. "A note on the use of quantile regression in beta convergence analysis," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 3(52), pages 1-8.
    17. Alex Coad, 2007. "A Closer Look at Serial Growth Rate Correlation," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 31(1), pages 69-82, August.
    18. , & Lorenz, Jan & ,, 2016. "Innovation vs. imitation and the evolution of productivity distributions," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(3), September.
    19. repec:ath:journl:tome:34:v:2:y:2014:i:34:p:13-21 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Chhavi Tiwari & Sankalpa Bhattacharjee & Debkumar Chakrabarti, 2020. "Investigating Regional Inequalities in India: Are Indian Districts Converging?," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(5), pages 684-716, July.
    21. Marta Simões & João Sousa Andrade & Adelaide Duarte, 2012. "Convergence and Growth: Portugal in the EU 1986-2010," GEMF Working Papers 2012-13, GEMF, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sbe:breart:v:27:y:2007:i:2:a:1525. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Núcleo de Computação da FGV EPGE (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sbeeeea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.